Sitecom 500 Mbps homeplug Ethernet review -
Sitecom Homeplug 500 Mbps

Meet the Sitecom Homeplug 500 Mbps

The 500 Mbit homeplug transmits bandwidth intensive data easily and securely over the existing electrical wiring - without installation effort. In addition, the "Quality of Service" function prioritizes the bandwidth requirement of the data traffic, these devices have an advertised speed of 500 Mbps.

So the Sitecom functions can deliver speeds of up to 500Mb/s via Ethernet. Easy as 1-2-3 is continuously what pops into my mind... you just plug the adapter into an electrical outlet to turn your power grid into a data network. All you need is two adapters (two at minimum). If ever you decide to use a room for a different purpose or rearrange your office  no problem. Your network moves with you  without the need for reorganizing cables. Just plug the adapters into different electrical outlets. That really is all, and this is the sheer power of kits like these... the ease of use.

Data securityA special feature of the Sitecom adapter: a touch of a button is all it takes to activate 128-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption for maximum security. No additional software is required.

On the CD, there's software for Mac, PC and Linux. Software identifies devices on the powerline network with the MAC address being identified and the unit added by default to the list of secure devices.

A new power-saving function ensures that the homeplug automatically switches to standby when the connected device is switched off. This reduces power consumption by around 60%, we'll measure that later on though.

As stated, installation is easy. We plugged in one adapter to the network router and on the other end we plug in an adapter to a wall socket and connect it to the Ethernet. After a few seconds windows will have picked up the DHCP lease from the router and you are good to go on the web. VERY user friendly.

Sitecom 500 Mbps homeplug Ethernet reviewThe Sitecom Powerline Ethernet adapters allow you to use your mains electricity circuit to transfer data, this way you can extend your network to wherever you have a free plug socket. The product we test today comes from Sitecom, their 500 Mbps plus Homeplug. The kit provides a connection of up to 500Mbits/sec. Divide that by 8 bits and you'd in theory would be able to see transfer speeds of 62.5 Megabyte per second. In practice, however we tested the maximum net data rate is much MUCH lower, 60~100 Mbits/sec - still that is faster than Wi-Fi and sufficient fenough or streaming high-definition video from say your PC with network shares to, for instance, your HTPC.

Sitecom Media Player 2TB MD-272 reviewSo the new Sitecom Media Player comes standard with a new improved GUI, but also hardware wise harbor the latest Realtek 1185 chipset, and that changes a thing or two as pretty much any of the performance issues we had noticed in 1080P content playback (with very high bit-rate) on the previous chipset now are a thing of the past. That Realtek 1185 chipset has an increased clock frequency, 500 MHz coming from 400 MHz on the original version. And as little as it sounds, it makes a serious difference. The HDD TV Media Player 2TB allows you to play digital films, music and photos directly on your TV with High Definition quality (1080p).

Sitecom 300N X4 WLR-4000 Wireless router reviewSitecom introduces a series of standard routers but with a twist. They tagged their mainstream range from X1, X2, X3 and a more enthusiast range from X4, X5 and X6. They are all Gigabit models, but obviously the higher the number the better the feature set. all models now come with cloud security, and that's the new feature we'll discuss later on. We test the X4 WLR-4000 model.

Sitecom MD-500 Digital Media Set reviewOne of the kits Sitecom recently introduced consists out of a Gigabit router for your intra and local area network connectivity, a storage unit which Sitecom calls 'Home Storage center' will function as NAS server for all your multi-media content like photo's, music and movies. And then a small all-in-one HTPC or TV media player as we like to call it these days. To top things off they throw in a Logitech Harmony 650 universal remote control. Aren't you just eager to see how this HTPC network platform will perform ?